Ben Carson Defends Buying $31,000 Dining Set to Congress: ‘we Left It to My Wife’
WASHINGTON — Ben Carson, the assistant of housing and metropolitan development, told a home committee on Tuesday from the decision to buy a $31,000 dining room set for his office last year, leaving the details to his wife and staff that he had “dismissed” himself.
Mr. Carson offered a rambling, from time to time contradictory, description associated with purchase of this dining table, seats and hutch, a deal that converted into a pr tragedy that led President Trump to take into account changing him, relating to White home aides.
The hearing, ahead of the home Appropriations subcommittee that determines the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s spending plan, had been likely to target the administration’s proposed budget cuts to your agency. Alternatively it absolutely was dominated by questions regarding Mr. Carson’s judgment, the conduct of his spouse, Candy Carson, and son Ben Carson Jr., and Mr. Carson’s initial denial which he ended up being alert to the spending, a situation he’s modified.
“I happened to be maybe perhaps maybe not big into redecorating. That he had no knowledge of the $5,000 limit imposed on cabinet secretaries for redecorating their offices — despite the release of emails between top aides discussing how to justify getting around the cap if it were up to me, my office would look like a hospital waiting room,” said Mr. Carson, who repeatedly told committee members.
Mr. Carson, a neurosurgeon that is retired no previous federal government experience, stated the choice to change the furniture had been produced in the attention of security instead than redecorating.
“People had been stuck by finger finger finger nails, and a seat had collapsed with some body sitting in it,” he said, evidently a mention of a message delivered by way of a senior aide final summer time whom said she had been afraid that the old dining set had been dropping aside and may induce a mishap.Read More